Content area
Abstract
Members of global corporations need a global mindset and a strong organizational culture to ensure team effectiveness and competitive advantage. However, some researchers have argued that a strong organizational culture impedes a global mindset. In this quantitative study, an observational, cross-sectional design was used to investigate the relationship of both strength of organizational culture and global mindset to team effectiveness as perceived by 25 upper-level managers of American global corporations. Team effectiveness was positively correlated with strength of organizational culture, r(23) = .58, p = .002, and with global mindset, r(23) = .46, p = .01. The relationship of global mindset to team effectiveness was explained entirely by strength of organizational culture. Global mindset did not moderate the relationship between strength of organizational culture and team effectiveness, and strength of organizational culture did not moderate the relationship between global mindset and team effectiveness. Strength of organizational culture and global mindset were highly correlated, r(23) = .58, p = .002, demonstrating a belief that a strong organizational culture did not obstruct a global mindset in predicting team effectiveness. Organizational leaders are encouraged to create learning experiences such as global team projects and language and culture education to integrate different perspectives. Future studies should focus on attaining a larger sample size in order to achieve a higher response rate perhaps by extending participation to non-American global corporations. A comparison of the same variables with strictly born global corporations could provide a useful comparison. A qualitative design may provide more meaningful information regarding the variables—all of which are deep-set variables difficult to constrain to limited descriptions.
